A Gentleman 'Til Midnight. Alison DeLaine

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       CHAPTER ONE

      East of the Strait of Gibraltar

      April 1767

      A WAVE SWELLED and broke over his head, and for a moment Captain James Warre couldn’t breathe. His fingers dug into the wet wood beneath him, but there was nothing to grasp. The churning water choked him, nudged him, smothered him.

      With a massive effort he shifted to his side, then let his head fall in a fit of coughing. The seawater left his mouth brackish and dry. Closing his eyes, he let himself slip away.

      “Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green.” Nap time, young Master Warre, and I’ll hear no more of your sorry excuses.

      Nap time. The sun shone warm on his back as he pitched and bobbed with the chop.

      Then suddenly, a shadow.

      There was a bump, a scrape. Wood met wood, jarring him. His eyes flew open as he braced for a cannon’s roar. Fluttered closed again when it didn’t come.

      A female voice drifted to his ears. “...alive, do you think?”

      The soft, lilting sound wrapped around him like a melody.

      Bump, bump, bump.

      “...bloody well dead, or close enough.” A male voice now.

      Bump, bump, scrape.

      “...haul him up?” Female again.

      Bump, bump— He opened his eyes and stared straight at the wet hull of a ship. Another wave engulfed him and left him gasping, straining to see the deck in a moment of clarity. He hadn’t the strength. His gaze swept the ragged length of the raft keeping him afloat— No, not raft. Broken decking. A memory threatened to pull him under, but he fought for lucidity and kept his gaze moving, turning, sweeping upward. She was a brig.

      “...any manner of disease. We cannot afford the risk.” Through a haze he recognized the words as English. But then a string of shouted words, this time unintelligible—but not unrecognizable.

      English and Moorish together, on a Mediterranean brig.

      Renegades. They would not look kindly on the captain of a British ship of the line.

      The muffled snap of cloth in the breeze kept him fighting to see the stern. If he could just see her colors... The curving hull blocked his view of all but a bright red corner wafting in the wind.

      He fixed his eye on that corner, waiting, clawing against an invisible undertow.

      Nap time, young Master Warre—

      No! He had to see that flag.

      A wave broke over him. His mouth filled with seawater and he gagged, choking and sputtering again as he re-fixed his gaze. Finally, a gust whipped the greater part of the flag into view.

      A slender, yellow arm stretched out against the red background, its fist curled around a black cutlass.

      Bloody living hell.

      He didn’t need to see the rest of the flag to know that shapely arm was attached to a woman’s shoulder and breast. He let his head drop against the wet wood.

      “Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly...”

      Bump, bump, bump.

      The next wave swept him from consciousness.